December 6, 2007 Last week somebody in a small town in the Middle Atlas invited us to spend the night in his house. Apparently he regularly invites tourists into his home. He was living with his brother`s family in a large house, of which they only use two rooms. Grandmother, two younger women, two boys and a baby slept all together in the livingroom. This house had an actual kitchen with running water.
The man who had invited us went back to work for a couple more hours and we cooked our dinner. It was nice to be in someones home without having the social responsibilities that go with it. The family did their thing and we did ours.
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Archive for January, 2008
Leaving Morocco is not so easy. You go into the border area, park your bike and drop off your passport. Then you wait. And you wait. And you wait along with twenty million other people of all sizes and skin colours, dressed in European jeans and Arabic gowns.
`No I am not okay and I am ready to go home. This entire trip has become useless. I might as well put my airplane on a bike`.
Our hotel room in Dakhla is fabulous. Of course only I would say that. One of the balconies has a view out over the palm trees by the promenade and the shimmering Atlantic Ocean. The other balcony has a view out over the Dakhla airport. Nice! Really nice! With a short walk up the stairs to the sunny rooftop, I watch fighter jets and helicopters taking off and landing. Ok, so the shower is only a tiny dripple of water. The music blaring from the street below keeps us awake late at night. But… The sound of blaring jet engines, United Nations airplanes taking off and landing, the occasional smell of kerosene… make up for these things.
On January second we finally make it: we bike into the Sahara desert. We leave late from a simple but nice hotel. New-year’s eve we’ve spent in a campground right next to partying, drunk Englishmen and we had some sleep to catch up. We depart from the town of Guelmim. When we leave the city, five different signs wish us `bonne route`. This looks serious. Will the desert be that difficult?
